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Democrats grapple with possibility of Cheney 2024 bid

Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) strong signal that she may run for president has Democrats talking about what a pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservative candidate could do to President Biden’s political future.

Cheney, who lost the same House bid she easily won last time, delivered an impassioned concession speech about the dangers of reelecting the former Republican president in 2024. The next morning, she previewed her own possible prospects in a televised interview that added to the speculation that she may seek a White House term herself. 

“It is something I’m thinking about, and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” she told the Today show. 

For Cheney, former President Trump and his strain of MAGA culture, as well as his defiance of the nation’s basic principles, is something she will do “whatever it takes” to stop, she told the network. For Democrats, however, her insistence offers something else: a big unknown to what’s already expected to be an unpredictable election cycle. 

“I greatly admire what Liz has done. She’s sacrificed her congressional career to stand up to Trump,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) told The Hill on Thursday. “As for 2024, it’s unclear to me if she ran as an independent that it would hurt Trump. There’s a danger she might inadvertently help Trump more than hurt him.”

Over at the White House, Biden reportedly called to congratulate the No. 3 Republican in the lower chamber after her double-digit defeat, an act of bipartisanship that’s second nature to the president but that has become rare in an increasingly polarized nation.

While many in the Democratic Party admire her service — the idea of “country over party” has been central to Biden’s own political life and what inspired much of his successful presidential bid — there’s no clear consensus on how a Cheney candidacy could shake out. 

Some Democrats see the conservative congresswoman splitting the Republican vote, effectively breaking up the coalition around Trump and weakening him. In that scenario, these voices hope Cheney would hypothetically make Biden a stronger general election candidate, and her presence in the race would help make Trump a one-term president. 

Others, however, like Boyle, have questions. They think she may chip off votes from Biden, who enjoyed a portion of support in 2020 from voters who disliked Trump and voted Democrat by default. 

With another GOP or independent option, that choice may be complicated.

“If she actually wants to run and try to win — either a Republican primary or in the general as an independent — the people telling her to do this are delusional and/or handcuffed to a green room installed on an Acela train,” said Eddie Vale, a Democratic strategist. “The inevitable end result is her pulling anti-Trump votes from Biden.”

Democrats have seen Biden’s 2024 prospects as rocky through much of his first term. For months, his standing within his own party had sunk so low that many were all but calling the midterms a lost cause, and pinning the blame on the president who they viewed as incapable of following through on campaign promises and his bigger legislative agenda.

That sentiment started to shift this month, when he signed a historic tax, climate and health care bill after negotiations with two of his party’s most stubborn moderate senators, Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.). The White House touted a high jobs number in August, and he also had a victory abroad, killing a major al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan. That comes on top of the earlier bipartisan infrastructure bill and COVID-19 improvements that the administration marked earlier in his term.

As a result, Biden’s previously anemic poll numbers have begun to tick upward. 

The idea that Cheney could somehow deflate Biden’s momentum and put doubt into voters’ minds about reelecting him when presented with the possibility of another option has put some Democrats on edge.

But progressives, who remember the Cheney brand from her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his integral role in the Iraq War under George W. Bush, are taking her words less seriously. Some are even scornful of what they see as hubris. 

“Some Democrats would rather see Liz Cheney in the Party than progressives,” Nina Turner, the former co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign and former House candidate in Cleveland, wrote on Twitter. “Shameful.”

Not only would many not vote for her, but others see her as essentially a nonfactor in a race that already has major figures like Biden and Trump in the conversation, and other Republicans and even some Democrats considering tossing their names into the mix. Some Republicans are already suggesting that Cheney would run as a Democrat. 

“Liz Cheney has no chance at winning either party’s primary,” said Sean McElwee, who founded and runs the left-wing polling firm Data for Progress. “I’m happy to make a bet with anyone who disagrees.”

Asked for comment on the possibility of a 2024 run, Cheney’s spokesperson pointed to a portion of the concession speech she delivered in Wyoming on Tuesday night.

“So, I ask you tonight to join me,” Cheney said in part. “As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together — Republicans, Democrats, and Independents — against those who would destroy our Republic.”

Cheney has received national attention for her high visibility on the Jan. 6 committee, where the House has been investigating the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, moving her away from the legacy of her family’s name and closer to her own brand of a principled conservative in a Republican Party that still considers Trump its leader.

Democrats see Trump’s moves, campaigning and endorsing down-ballot candidates and maintaining a war chest, as signs that he is looking to mount another bid. He essentially previewed that to New York Magazine last month, talking about the timing of a possible announcement instead of the overall idea of running. 

The FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago residence has added another undetermined element to the election that is still two years away. Taken in context, Cheney’s moves — including the $15 million this cycle she built up during her made-for-TV House bid and a newly announced political action committee focused on stopping Trump — have some gaming out possible best- and worst-case scenarios.

“If her goal is to stop Trump, and is running to be a human wrecking ball every day to his dishonesty and assault on Democracy while in the primary, that is of course helpful,” Vale said, with a caveat: “If she then encourages anyone who doesn’t support Trump to vote for Biden in the general election.”

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Biden marks Slavery Remembrance Day: ‘Great nations don’t hide from their history’

President Biden commemorated Slavery Remembrance Day on Saturday, saying in a statement that “great nations don’t hide from their history.”

“Today is a day to reflect on the terrible toll of slavery, and on our nation’s profound ability to heal and emerge stronger. Despite the horrors they faced, these men and women and their descendants have made countless contributions to the building of this nation and the continuous effort to realize the American ideal,” Biden said.

The president said he was “honored” to sign legislation last year making Juneteenth, which marks the day the last enslaved African Americans were told slavery had ended and the Civil War was no more, a federal holiday.

Biden also recognized Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) among the lawmakers who have pushed to establish Slavery Remembrance Day on Aug. 20.

The lawmakers reintroduced legislation last year to mark Slavery Remembrance Day on Aug. 20. Legislation commemorating the day as such passed the House last month. It awaits consideration in the Senate.

“My Original Slavery Remembrance Day Resolution denounces slavery, encourages people across the length and breadth of our nation to acknowledge the perverse role slavery played in our history, as well as stipulates that the U.S. House of Representatives officially supports the establishment of an annual Slavery Remembrance Day on August 20,” Green said in a statement following the passage of the bill in the House.

“This date was chosen because on August 20, 1619, a slave ship, The White Lion, arrived in Point Comfort near Norfolk, VA with the first 20 enslaved Africans brought to the English-speaking American colonies.”

Green hosted a breakfast on Saturday to commemorate Slavery Remembrance Day in Houston. 

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Giuliani associate wrote letter asking Trump to give him ‘general pardon’: book

Maria Ryan, an associate to Rudy Giuliani, requested that he receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a “general pardon” in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot in a letter addressed to the former president, according to a forthcoming book, The New York Times reported.

In “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor,” the author Andrew Kirtzman, who reported on the former Trump attorney for three decades as a journalist, says that Ryan wrote a letter to Trump on Jan. 10, 2021, asking for Giuliani to be paid for his services, to be given a pardon and to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom before Trump left office, according to the Times, which obtained a copy of the book.

“Mr. Giuliani rarely asks for anything for himself. He is praying you present him with this on Friday, January 15 or Monday the 19,” Ryan reportedly said in her letter to Trump in reference to the presidential honor.

Ryan separately sent a bill to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows requesting that Giuliani be paid $2.5 million for his services in addition to $45,000 for herself for “working in the campaign pursuing truth and justice for the president,” the book reported, quoting her description of her job, according to the Times.

Trump never received the letter, however, because a close adviser to Giuliani, Bernard Kerik, was shocked by Ryan’s asks and stopped the letter from getting to the president, the book reported.

A request for comment from the Times was not returned by Ryan. 

“The mayor did not authorize or request the notes,” Robert Costello, an attorney representing Giuliani, told the Times in an email, noting that the Trump ally did not know about Ryan’s correspondence. 

“The mayor has been consistent that he never asked for a pardon and told President Trump that if he was offered a pardon, he would decline it because he didn’t do anything wrong.”

The Hill has reached out to Ryan and Costello for comment. 

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Sunday shows preview: Student loan deadline looms; Cheney loses primary

The pending end to a pause in federal student loan payments and Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) House reelection primary loss are expected to be main topics on this week’s Sunday shows circuit. 

Former President Trump suspended student loan payments in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and President Biden has extended the pause a few times throughout his administration. The most recent extension is set to be up at the end of the month, and federal officials have not said if they plan to extend the pause further. 

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona would not say for sure if the Biden administration would continue the freeze in an interview on “CBS Mornings” on Tuesday. But he said it is a regular topic of discussion among members of the administration, and a decision will be made “soon.” 

“While I don’t have an announcement here today, I will tell you we’re having conversations daily with the White House and borrowers will know directly and soon from us when a decision is made,” Cardona said. 

The Biden administration is also facing pressure to forgive a certain amount of debt for borrowers, and the president has called on Congress to send legislation to his desk to forgive some debt. 

But with Congress likely to be deadlocked on the issue, Biden may need to take executive action to accomplish any debt forgiveness. He has asked Cardona to examine what authority he has as president to cancel the debt. 

Progressives have urged him to cancel as much as $50,000 of debt per borrower, but Biden has signaled he is more likely to cancel a smaller amount, potentially $10,000 per borrower. 

The administration has approved almost $32 billion in loan forgiveness for more than 1.6 million borrowers. Many of them attended schools that were found to have conducted business fraudulently or misled students. 

“I can’t get into the conversations we’re having daily, but I will tell you that from day one, the president’s been very clear about making sure we’re leading with students first,” said Cardona, who will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.” 

A group of more than 100 Democrats from the House and Senate signed Biden a letter at the end of last month to urge him to extend the pause. 

Republicans have pushed against Biden extending the pause and introduced legislation in April to end the freeze and limit the president’s authority to suspend payments in the future. 

Cheney’s defeat to Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman for Wyoming’s at-large House seat will also likely be discussed. 

With her loss, Cheney joins three other House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump over his role in inciting the mob ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection and have lost their reelection campaigns this year. 

Four GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump chose to not seek reelection, and two have advanced past their primaries to the general election. 

Cheney’s defeat was another demonstration of how her reputation among Republican voters has suffered since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and of Trump’s influence over the party. 

Trump went after many of the Republicans who voted to impeach him since leaving office, with Cheney one of his top targets. 

Cheney served as chair of the House Republican conference but was forced out over her impeachment vote and her strong condemnation of Trump and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. She has been one of two House Republicans who have served on the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. 

But Cheney has hinted that her political career may not be over, even if her time in Congress will end in January. 

Cheney said hours after her primary loss that she is “thinking about” running for president in 2024, and she will make a decision “in the coming months.” She filed paperwork on Wednesday to restructure her campaign account into a leadership PAC called The Great Task. 

Cheney will appear on ABC’s “This Week.” 

Below is the full list of guests scheduled to appear on this week’s Sunday talk shows: 

ABC’s “This Week” – Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) 

NBC’s “Meet the Press” – Education Secretary Miguel Cardona; Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Andy Barr (R-Ky.) 

CBS’s “Face the Nation” – Cardona; Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio); Deborah Birx, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator; David Laufman, former chief of counterintelligence at the Justice Department 

CNN’s “State of the Union” – Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.); Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) 

“Fox News Sunday” – Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm; Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.) 

Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” – Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.); Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R); Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.); Joe Pinion, Republican nominee for Senate in New York and Republican strategist

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Indiana GOP chooses nominee to replace late Rep. Walorski

The Indiana Republican Party on Saturday selected Rudy Yakym as the GOP nominee to replace the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), who died suddenly in a car accident earlier this month.

“Congratulations to Rudy Yakym, our Second Congressional District nominee for both the upcoming special and general elections,” wrote Indiana GOP Chairman Kyle Hupfer in a statement announcing Yakym’s nomination.

“Rudy will be a strong voice for northern Indiana and continue Jackie Walorski’s legacy of fighting for conservative values in Washington, D.C.”

Yakym, who was previously the finance director for Walorski’s congressional campaign, was one of 12 candidates vying to fill the congresswoman’s vacancy in the 2nd Congressional District of Indiana.

The businessman won two caucuses, one to nominate a candidate for the special election to replace Walorski and one to select a nominee for the general election in November.

“We are still in shock by the tragic passing of Rep. Jackie Walorski and not eager to talk about the next steps,” said Hupfer in an Aug. 9 statement announcing the date of the caucuses.

“Unfortunately, Indiana Code requires us to move much faster than any of us would like.”

Walorski died alongside her District Director Zachery Potts and Communications Director Emma Thomson, who were in the car with her during the tragic crash in Indiana on Aug. 3.

— Updated at 3:18 p.m.

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Crisis in policing runs deeper than you think

I’m a retired cop. I know what wearing the uniform asks of those who serve. I’ve held the hands of overwhelmed officers, comforted bereaved spouses, and felt my own heart break. I was with the Denver Police Department for 25 years, later with the New York City Police Department as Deputy Commissioner of Training and then Deputy Commissioner of Equity and Inclusion. But you don’t need all that experience to know American policing is in crisis; just read the headlines out of Uvalde, Chicago, the nation’s capital, or frankly anywhere else.

The struggles confronting law enforcement now are rooted in the failure to address the same struggles in the past: a culture of rigid masculinity that precludes asking for help, doesn’t allow officers to sufficiently listen to communities’ concerns, allows historical bigotries to flourish internally and fails to acknowledge the toll it all takes on officers, particularly the Black men and even more so the Black women who choose to serve.

Thirty years ago, we were told we had a choice: Suck it up — or get a different job. New traumas were layered on top of those we already carried from a lifetime of living with those bigotries — not just the fact that we were first responders, with front-row seats at some of humanity’s ugliest moments, but also the contempt with which we were often met, from those we served alongside as well as those we served. Knowing that today’s Black, Brown, or female officers say that the uniform still comes with overt sexism and racism fills me with great sadness.

These unacknowledged traumas, widespread burnout, and the Great Resignation have left departments understaffed, even as they face rising line-of-duty deaths and suicide rates. Everyone’s working longer shifts, getting fewer days off, and — if they’re Black or Brown — met with microaggressions and outright racism before they even leave the precinct — witness the reports of offensive texts, recordings and worse. 

I know many people, not least in Black and Brown communities, have run out of empathy for law enforcement; after the killings of Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Jayland Walker, and so many others, I understand why. Officers who engage in criminal behaviors and fail the communities they serve must be held accountable. I’m concerned, though, for the officers left behind, those trying to do the right thing, for whom the protests and uprisings of 2020 hit painfully close to home. They’re at a breaking point.

We’ve begun, at least, to have some kind of language around it: We talk about “wellness” and the need for “support.” Some in leadership have been held accountable for hostile work environments; some cities have begun to address the structural racism that impedes careers and leads to disparate policing outcomes. Until these efforts go deeper, though, and address the full complexity of public safety — including but going far beyond law enforcement — they’ll be little more than lip service.

Take the sudden mushrooming of “wellness programs.” Are they appropriately funded? Are they inclusive? Are officers given the time, space, and respect necessary to access these programs without stigma? If leadership can find millions for equipment upgrades but can’t scrape together enough for support programming that meets the diverse needs of a diverse force, they’ll continue to face crises of hiring, retention, and community trust. If police leadership, politicians, or anyone else is interested in “backing the blue,” they should start by prioritizing the health and wellbeing of the people wearing that blue.

While still serving with the Denver Police Department, I co-founded the Center for Policing Equity (CPE); at CPE, we gather data and produce robust analyses to identify and reduce the drivers of racially disparate policing outcomes, our work informed by a deep concern for equity and inclusiveness within policing and between police departments and their communities. We’ve been pioneers in reimagining and redesigning public safety systems and have seen the lasting change such work can produce.

Officers in need of support can contact Shatterproof For First Responders, a treatment resource for substance abuse and mental health issues, and COPLINE, a hotline staffed by retired law enforcement. Agencies seeking to make meaningful change can reach out to CPE, consult with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), or seek input from organizations such as Shatterproof and COPLINE. The first step is to recognize the enormity of the problem; from there, concrete, evidence-led plans such as those we’ve conceived at CPE will be a crucial first step on the road to substantial change.

No single organization, program, or agency can do this work on their own. Our public safety crisis requires an all-of-society response, beginning with an acknowledgment of the weight so many officers carry. 

Or we could continue to ignore it. But know that whenever an officer shows up for their shift, whether they’re fully present or struggling, trauma shows up, too. Continuing to pretend otherwise will do little but create opportunities for disaster.

Dr. Tracie L. Keesee is senior vice president of Justice Initiatives and co-founder of the Center For Policing Equity; she served for 25 years in the Denver Police Department and subsequently served as New York City Police Department’s deputy commissioner of training and deputy commissioner of equity and inclusion.

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Romney: Cheney 'would not become the nominee if she were to run' for president

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said in an interview Thursday that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) “would not become the nominee if she were to run” for president after the Wyoming lawmaker acknowledged earlier this week she was considering a presidential bid.

“I don’t think someone who is seen outside the Trump circle would have any realistic chance of becoming the nominee in 2024, barring something I can’t foresee at this stage,” Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, told the Desert News. “If he doesn’t run again, I think it’ll be people who either were supporters of his or people who didn’t say much about him and then would be open to become the nominee.”

“I’m not going to encourage anyone to run for president. I’ve done that myself, and that’s something I’m not doing again. I don’t know if she really wants to do that. She would not become the nominee if she were to run. I can’t imagine that would occur,” he also said.

The Utah senator, who voted in favor of impeaching Trump following the Capitol riot similar to Cheney, also said he appreciated her courage for sticking to conscience given the risk and consequences her deviation with former President Trump and much of the Republican Party posed for her. 

“I salute her courage. You wouldn’t call it courage, by the way, if there were no consequence for doing what you think is right. She did what she thought was right. I believe she was right,” he told the Desert News.

Cheney acknowledged in an interview on NBC News’ “Today” show earlier this week that she was considering a presidential bid, remarks that came one day after she lost her primary to attorney Harriet Hageman (R).

The Wyoming lawmaker drew the ire of Trump after she pushed back against his baseless allegations about the 2020 election and for later serving on a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Trump endorsed a primary challenger to her as a result, successfully ousting the three-term incumbent. 

“That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months, and I’m not going to make any announcements here this morning. But it is something that I am thinking about, and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” Cheney said when asked if she was considering running for the presidency.

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Trump mulling motion to appoint ‘special master’ to review evidence from Mar-a-Lago search: attorney

Former President Trump is considering filing a motion for a “special master” to review the evidence that the FBI obtained during its search at his Mar-a-Lago property last week. 

Trump’s lead counsel for the matter, James Trusty, told conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin on his show on Friday that the former president’s legal team will “very soon” file a motion related to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. 

Trusty said appointing a special master, which is an official selected by a judge to carry out a judicial matter on the court’s behalf, is rare in relation to search warrants being executed, but there needs to be “somebody in the middle” because the Justice Department (DOJ) should not be able to be “the guardians of what’s privileged or not.” 

He said one of the benefits of appointing a special master is stopping the DOJ in inspecting the documents. 

Trump hinted on his social media platform Truth Social earlier on Friday that he would take legal action against the search related to the Fourth Amendment, claiming his rights have been violated. 

Trusty said previous arguments about the disclosure of documents related to the search of Trump’s property in Palm Beach, Fla., have been related to the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of the press, but Trump’s lawyers are going to work “very hard” in defense of Trump, who he said should not have been subjected to the search warrant. 

He said the team will argue that the search was overly broad based on the Fourth Amendment language requiring particularity and narrowness in searches.

Trusty said the part of the search warrant that allowed FBI agents to take an entire box if a document marked as classified was found in it, along with other boxes that are “collectively stored” with the box, is the “functional equivalent” of a general search with no limit in scope. 

He said the property receipt, which has been made public, is vague and includes descriptions like “box of documents,” so Trump’s team does not know exactly what was taken or from where. 

Trump’s potential action would come days after the federal judge who approved the search warrant said he might be willing to unseal parts of the affidavit that the FBI used to show its evidence that there was probable cause of a crime being committed. The judge told the DOJ to suggest redactions to the document, and he would determine if they were appropriate. 

The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants specifically describe the location to be searched and items to be seized. The search warrant was unsealed shortly after the search took place following a DOJ motion for it to be publicized given the significant public interest in the situation.

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To combat forced labor, the US needs more trade with developing countries, not less

On Aug. 5, the United States trade representative tweeted out that public comments on its “first-ever trade strategy to combat forced labor” were due. I know this is a few weeks late, but I can quickly get to the point: To help curb abuses of worker rights abroad, the U.S. needs more trade with developing countries, not less.

Labor standards have been a part of U.S. trade policy since the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. At the time, the concern was to make sure that American manufacturers would not have to compete with cheap “convict labor” abroad. The 1930 Tariff Act went further still, calling on the government to ban “All goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part by convict labor or/and forced labor or/and indentured labor ….”

These bans, known as “withhold release orders” (WROs), were rare through 2016. In fact, only 10 were issued from 1930 on, and none from 2000 to 2016. The conventional wisdom is that this was due to a provision on “consumptive demand,” which waived those imports that couldn’t otherwise be sourced.

Section 307 got a makeover in the mid-1980s. The provision on consumptive demand was dropped. WROs began to target whole countries, not just specific suppliers. Then, in 2017, a WRO was slapped on all North Korean imports, based on a “rebuttable presumption” that forced labor is the norm in that country. This reversed the burden of proof, so that businesses sourcing things “wholly or in part” from North Korea had to disprove the charges. The Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020 assumes the same thing about the Xinjiang region of China.

Back in 2012, the U.S. International Trade Commission surveyed the empirical evidence on whether enforcing labor standards through trade works. It found that Section 307-type measures can help. More importantly, it found that developing countries do not lower their labor standards to derive an advantage in trade. On the contrary, those more fully engaged in the global economy typically pursue higher labor standards.

Congress clearly didn’t get the memo. It started talking about the need to revamp Section 307 as if the International Trade Commission had found the opposite of what it actually reported.

It shouldn’t be surprising that developing countries are skeptical of the link between trade and labor standards. In 2001, for example, India opined to the World Trade Organization that this link is a Trojan horse of protectionism.

One concern is that labor standards are morphing into yet another trade remedy, like an antidumping or countervailing duty. Rival U.S. firms, for example, can file for WROs to harass each other’s supply chain across different countries, or if they buy from different suppliers in the same country.

Another concern is that labor standards are more about raising audit costs than delivering on worker rights. Like other standards, the many requirements for verification and recordkeeping are daunting under the best of circumstances, let alone where there is a rebuttal presumption of forced labor.

Developing-country suppliers, and American companies that buy from them, need a clear and empirically-grounded methodology so they can prove their compliance with labor standards. Otherwise, Section 307 will increasingly be used as a Trojan horse of protectionism.

Marc L. Busch is the Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Follow him on Twitter @marclbusch.

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10M Americans in southwest under flood watch

A large swath of the southwest U.S. encompassing about 10 million people is under flood watch due to a potential tropical cyclone, CNN reported.

“The stage is set for southern Arizona and New Mexico to potentially receive prolific rainfall and widespread flash flooding today,” wrote the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Prediction Center (WPC) on Saturday.

The WPC has instated a “moderate risk” warning for excessive rainfall in southeast Arizona and southwest and central New Mexico, as well as a “slight risk” warning in western Arizona, the Texas panhandle and the Four Corners and Rockies region.

“Urban locations in addition to areas of complex terrain, slot canyons, arroyos, and burn scars are especially vulnerable for flash flooding and can quickly turn into very dangerous situations,” the center warned.

The WPC said that the precipitation is associated with a “remnant tropical wave” during an “ongoing active monsoon season.”

In addition, the center said that a potential tropical cyclone could reach southern Texas as a tropical storm on Sunday.

“This system is adding uncertainty and complexity to the forecast across Texas for the next couple of days. Areas of heavy rain and some squalls are expected to move into southern Texas on Sunday as the system arrives,” it wrote.

Storms have already upset some areas, including Zion National Park, where a person went missing on Friday.

“Following a search and rescue operation that began on Friday, August 19, the Narrows and Riverside Walk will remain closed,” the official Twitter account for Zion National Park wrote on Saturday morning. “The Zion Search and Rescue Team will continue to search for a missing person on Saturday, August 20.”

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